“The Appearance of a Neatly Finished Box”

The history of computing before the electronic era is frequently reduced to the history of calculating and tabulating machines, which are a posteriori designated it as digital and therefore qualify to be considered direct ancestors of our electronic computer. As I perceive it, we face a two-dimensional historiographical challenge. We have to check if it is correct to privilege the history of computing with calculating and tabulating machines when it comes to the mechanical and the electrical eras. At the same time, we have to explain why computing with calculating and tabulating machines emerged as the privileged ancestor of electronic computing. The understudied history of the comparatively limited use of calculating and tabulating machines in engineering offers a contrast that is worth considering when it comes to address the aforementioned challenge. More specifically, in response to the first dimension of the aforementioned challenge, I will in this chapter present evidence that suggests that calculating and tabulating machines were not as important in engineering as we would expect based on the canonical emphasis on these machines as inherently technically superior. On the other hand, in response to the second dimension of this historiographical challenge, I will present evidence that shows that, in comparison to other computing artifacts of the 1914 Exhibition (e.g., in comparison to slide rules), calculating machines were more compatible with the pursuit of the further advancement of the capitalist division-of-computing labor.

1. 1.

   Michael R. Williams. 1982. Modern instruments and methods of calculation: A handbook of the Napier tercentenary exhibition, Reprint Edition. Los Angeles: Tomash Publishers.

2. 2.

   For the expressions “long nineteenth century” and “brief twentieth century,” see Eric Hobsbawm . 1987. The age of revolution, 1789–1848. New York: Pantheon; Eric Hobsbawm . 1996. The age of capital, 1848–1875. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Eric Hobsbawm .1989. The age of empire, 1875–1914. New York: Vintage; Eric Hobsbawm . 1994. Age of extremes: The short twentieth century, 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph.

3. 3.

   David Eugene Smith . 1925. History of mathematics, vol. II. Boston: Ginn.

4. 4.

   Joseph Lipka . 1918. Graphical and mechanical computation. New York: Wiley.

5. 5.

   For a sample of works on the history of calculating and tabulating machines , see Lars Heide. 2009. Punched-card systems and the early information explosion, 1880–1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; Goeffrey D. Austrian. 1982. Herman Hollerith: Forgotten giant of information processing, 105–111. New York: Columbia University Press; Martin Campbell-Kelly’s contribution to Computing Before Computers, William Aspray ed. Ames: Iowa University Press, 1990), Chapter 4; James W. Cortada. 1993. Before the computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and the industry they created, 1865–1956. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Arthur Norberg. 1990. High-technology calculation in the early 20th century: Punched card machinery in business and government. Technology and Culture 31(4): 753–779; Peggy Aldrich Kidwell. 2000, April–June. The adding machine Fraternity of St. Louis: Creating a center of invention, 1880–1920. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 22(2): 4–21; Friedrich W. Kisterman. 1991. The invention and development of the Hollerith punched card: In Commemoration of the 130th anniversary of the birth of Herman Hollerith and for the 100th anniversary of large scale data processing. Annals of the History of Computing 13(3): 245–259; Friedrich W. Kisterman. 1995, Summer. The way to the first automatic sequence-controlled calculator : The 1953 DEHOMAG D 11 tabulator . IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 17(2) (): 33–49; Friedrich W. Kisterman. 1997. Locating the victims: The Nonrole of punched card technology and census work. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 19(2): 31–45; Lars Heide. 1991. From invention to production: The development of punched-card Machinery by F.R. Bull and K.A. Knutsen. Annals of the History of Computing 13(3): 261–272; Lars Heide. 1994. Punched-card and computer applications in Denmark, 1911–1970. History and Technology 11: 77–79, and Lars Heide. 1997. Shaping a technology: American punched-card systems, 1880–1914. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 19(4): 28–41; JoAnne Yates. 1993, Spring. Co-evolution of information-processing technology and use: Interaction between the life insurance and tabulating industries. Business History Review 67: 1–51 and Andrew Warwick. 1994. The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?. In The values of precision, ed. M. Norton Wise. Princeton: Princeton University Press. For an early account and its more recent reproduction, see George C. Chase. 1952, May. History of mechanical computing. ACM Proceedings: 1–28, and George C. Chase. 1980. History of mechanical computing machinery. Annals of the History of Computing 2(3): 198–226. For calculating and tabulating machines in scientific computing, see Peggy Aldrich Kidwell. 1990. American scientists and calculating machines : From novelty to commonplace. Annals of the History of Computing 12(1): 31–40; Mary Croarken. 1990. Early scientific computing in Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Frederik Nebeker. 1995. Calculating the weather: Meteorology in the 20th century. San Diego: Academic Press, and Paul A. Medwick. 1988. Douglas Hartree and early computations in quantum mechanics. Annals of the History of Computing 10(2).

6. 6.

   For Swartzlander’s periodization, see Earl Swartzlander. 1995, Fall. Generations of calculators . IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 17(3): 76.

7. 7.

   Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?, 336.

8. 8.

   P.H. Skinner . 1915, January 7. Computing machines in engineering. Engineering News: 25.

9. 9.

   Karl Marx . 1990. Capital, vol. 1. Penguin.

10. 10.

    Skinner, Computing machines in engineering: 27.

11. 11.

    For the introduction of the differentiation between “constant” and “variable,” capital, see Karl Marx , Capital, vol. 1.

12. 12.

    Skinner, Computing machines in engineering: 25.

13. 13.

    Ibid., 25.

14. 14.

    Ibid., 27.

15. 15.

    Ibid. , 25.

16. 16.

    See Charles Babbage . 1851. The exposition of 1851: Views of the industry, the science, and the Government of England. London: John Murray, 170. For an introduction to Babbage ’s machines, see Allan Bromley’s contribution to Computing before computers, William Aspray ed., Chapter 2. For historical works that contain insightful links between the technical division-of-labor in Babbage ’s infamous writings on calculating engines and the social division of labor in Babbage ’s equally infamous writings on the society that he lived, see Gordon L. Miller. 1990. Charles Babbage and the design of intelligence: Computers and society in 19th-century England. Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society 10: 68–76, and Simon Schaffer. 1994, Autumn. Babbage ’s intelligence: Calculating engines and the factory system. Critical Inquiry 21(1): 203–227. See also the entries by Simon Schaffer, Doron Swade, and Francis Spufford. 1996. Cultural Babbage : Technology, time, and invention, ed. Francis Spufford and Jenny Uglow. London: Faber and Faber.

17. 17.

    See Skinner , Computing machines in engineering: 25. For the dependence of electronic computing on use (purpose), see Richard E. Smith . 1989. A historical overview of computer architecture. Annals of the History of Computing 10(4): 277–303, and Eloina Pelaez. 1999, June. The stored program computer: Two conceptions. Social Studies of Science 29(3): 359–389.

18. 18.

    See Frederick, S. Dellenbaugh , Jr. 1921, February. An electromechanical device for rapid schedule harmonic analysis of complex waves. AIEE Journal: 135–144. For the Marchant calculating machine , see Peggy Aldrich Kidwell and Paul E. Ceruzzi. 1994. Landmarks in digital computing: A Smithsonian pictorial history, 36. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, and several passages in Cortada, Before the computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and the industry they created, 1865–1956.

19. 19.

    See, William Aspray. 1994. Calculating power: Edwin L. Harder and analog computing in the electric power industry. In Sparks of Genius: Portraits of electrical engineering excellence, ed. Frederik Nebeker, 163–164 and 194. New York: IEEE Press.

20. 20.

    “Network Calculator ...Mathematician Par Excellence”, Westinghouse Engineer 4 (July, 1944), editorial.

21. 21.

    See L.A. Dunstan . 1947a. Machine computation of power network performance. AIEE Transactions 66: 610–620 and 621–624 (discussion), and L.A. Dunstan . 1947b, September. Machine computing of networks. Electrical Engineering: 901–906. For a similar case, see Philip D. Jennings, and George E. Quinan. 1946. The use of business machines in determining the distribution of load and reactive components in power line network. AIEE Transactions 65: 1045–1046.

22. 22.

    Paul Ceruzzi. 1997. Crossing the divide: Architectural issues and the emergence of the stored program computer, 1935–1955. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 19(1): 5–12.

23. 23.

    Dunstan , Machine computation of power network performance: 611 and 613, and Machine computing of networks: 904.

24. 24.

    Nathan Ensmenger. 2016. The multiple meanings of a flowchart . Information and Culture: A Journal of History 51(3): 321–351.

25. 25.

    Skinner , Computing machines in engineering: 27.

26. 26.

    See W.E. Freeman . 1909. Pay-roll problems in the electric light industry. NELA 32nd Convention 3: 74–119; W.E. Freeman . 1929, November 15. Electrical accounting systems. Electrician 103: 598, and Joachim Hans Schultz . 1929, February. Lochkartenverfahren und Mitlaufende Kalkulation in der Elektrotechnischen Industrie. Technik und Wirtschaft 22: 41–45.

27. 27.

    For Comrie, see L.J. Comrie. 1932. The applications of the Hollerith tabulating machine to Brown’s tables of the moon. Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices 92(7): 694–707 and L.J. Comrie. 1944, August. Recent progress in scientific computing. Journal of Scientific Instruments 21: 129–135, and L.J. Comrie. 1946. The application of commercial calculating machines to scientific computation. Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Calculation 2(16): 149–159. For Eckert, see W.J. Eckert. 1984. Punched card methods in scientific computation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. For Kimball , see Everett Kimball , Jr. A fundamental punched card method for technical computations, 1. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census , Machine Tabulation Division, ca. mid-1940s.

28. 28.

    See Cortada, Before the computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and the industry they created, 1865–1956, 136.

29. 29.

    Ibid., 39–41.

30. 30.

    For the comptometer catalog, see Applied mechanical arithmetic as practiced on the controlled key comptometer (Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Mezzanine Library, Trade Catalogs Collection), 239.

31. 31.

    Ibid.

32. 32.

    Ibid., 243 and 229.

33. 33.

    Ibid.

34. 34.

    See Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?, 313.

35. 35.

    See Thomas T.P. Bruce Warren . 1872. On the application of the calculating machine of Thomas De Colmar to electrical computations. Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers 2: 141–169. For Hannyngton , see Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?.

36. 36.

    Bruce Warren , On the application of the calculating machine of Thomas De Colmar to electrical computations: 145 and 164.

37. 37.

    Ibid., 145–146 and 164.

38. 38.

    Ibid., 164–168.

39. 39.

    Ibid., 167.

40. 40.

    On the concept of surplus value, see Karl Marx , Capital, vol. 1.

41. 41.

    Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?, 317.

42. 42.

    Ibid., 336.

43. 43.

    See Johachim Teichmuller . 1893, September 15. Ueber die Stromvertheilung in Elektrischen Leitungsnetzen. Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift 37: 540.

44. 44.

    Aristotle Tympas. 2001. The computor and the analyst : Computing and power, 1870s–1960s. PhD diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Chapter 2.

45. 45.

    See The miscalculation of mains. The Electrician (February 9, 1894): 384–385, and Johachim Teichmuller . 1894, March 16. The calculation of mains. The Electrician: 560–561. For the history of the journal The Electrician, see P. Strange. 1985. Two early periodicals: The electrician and the electrical review, 1880–1890. IEE Proceedings 132, part A(8): 575–581.

46. 46.

    See Ernst Martin . 1992. The calculating machines : Their history and development, 96–97. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

47. 47.

    Teichmuller , Ueber die Stromvertheilung in Elektrischen Leitungsnetzen, 540.

48. 48.

    The miscalculation of mains. The Electrician (February 9, 1894), 384–385.

49. 49.

    Teichmuller , The calculation of mains. The Electrician, 561.

50. 50.

    The miscalculation of mains, 385.

51. 51.

    Ibid., 385.

52. 52.

    Ibid., 385.

53. 53.

    Teichmuller , The calculation of mains: 560–561.

54. 54.

    Ibid., 560.

55. 55.

    The miscalculation of mains: 385.

56. 56.

    See Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?, 336, 343, and 315.

57. 57.

    Teichmuller , The calculation of mains: 561.

58. 58.

    See Francis Jehl . 1939. Menlo Park reminiscences, 736–737. Dearborn: The Edison Institute.

59. 59.

    See Electrical World XIV, no. 3 (July 20): 42.

60. 60.

    For an account of the instability involved in early distribution networks and the stabilization techniques tried, see R.C.R. Brooke. 1985, December. Distribution diary. IEE Proceedings 132, (A8).

61. 61.

    For an introduction to the overall more cautious approach of the British, which resulted in more localized networks on the grounds of paying greater attention to the increase in instability, see Stathis Arapostathis. 2008. Morality, locality and ‘Standardization’ in the work of British consulting electrical engineers, 1880–1914. History of Technology 28: 53–74. As I read it, the attention by Arapostathis to morality and its manifestation in moving cautiously in the face of substantial instability and other risks in a local (in this case the British) context, moves us beyond the canonical attribution of the rapid increase of electric networks to a technical efficiency—see, for example, the celebrated account by Thomas P. Hughes. 1983. Networks of power: Electrification in western society 1880–1930. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. For an introduction to the British context of the debate over the degree of the mathematization of electrical engineering, see Stathis Arapostathis, and Graeme Gooday. 2013, June. Electrical technoscience and physics in transition, 1880–1920. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 44, part A (2): 202–211.

62. 62.

    Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?.

63. 63.

    Tympas, From digital to analog and back: The ideology of intelligent machines in the history of the electrical analyzer 1870s–1960s.

64. 64.

    On the ideological connection of the masculine with the encased-private mind that controls the analog parts of the electronic computer , and, the control of the revealed-public feminine body by the digital parts of the electronic computer, see Aristotle Tympas, Hara Konsta, Theodore Lekkas, and Serkan Karas. 2010. Constructing gender and computing in advertising images: Feminine and masculine computer parts. In Gender codes: Women and men in the computing professions, ed. Tom Misa, 187–209. IEEE Press.

65. 65.

    See H.S. McCormack. 1913, March 1. Keeping books by machine: The punched card as a saver of brain energy. Scientific American: 194–195; S. Bent Russell. 1915, September 18. A thinking machine, planning and theories: Mechanical reproduction of mental processes. Scientific American 113: 246–257, and Emanuel Scheyer. 1922, December. When perforated paper goes to work: How strips of paper can endow inanimate machines with brains of their own. Scientific American: 394–395 and 445. For Warwick, see, Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?, 327–336. For the ideology of intelligent machines in connection to the network analyzer , see Tympas, From digital to analog and back: The ideology of intelligent machines in the history of the electrical analyzer, 1870s–1960s: 42–48.

66. 66.

    The Mechanical Accountant, Engineering (December 26, 1902): 840–841.

67. 67.

    Morrell W. Gaines . 1905, December. Tabulating-machine cost accounting for factories of diversified product. Engineering Magazine: 372–373.

68. 68.

    Last word in equipment for accounting work. Snap Shots (June, 1922).

69. 69.

    Employees operate ‘Brainy’ accounting machines. Snap Shots (September 1938): 8.

70. 70.

    See J.A.V. Turck . 1972. Origin of modern calculating machines . Arno Press, and Martin , The calculating machines : Their history and development.

71. 71.

    I have first argued about the importance of studying the history of comparisons of computing technology at World Fairs in Tympas, The computor and the analyst : Computing and power, 1870s–1960s. A relevant extract from this dissertation was presented and discussed at a scholarly conference. See Aristotle Tympas, and Theodore Lekkas. 2006. Certainties and doubts in world fair comparisons of computing artifacts. Proceedings of the XXV Scientific Instrument Symposium “East and West The Common European Heritage”. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Museum: 295–300. The importance of this study has been confirmed by: Kidwell, Peggy Aldrich, Ackerberg-Hastings, A. and Roberts, D.L. 2008. Tools of American mathematics teaching, 1800–2000. Johns Hopkins University Press. see pp. 105–122.

72. 72.

    See Frederick A.P. Barnard . 1869. Paris universal exhibition, 1867: Report on machinery and processes of the industrial arts and apparatus of the exacts sciences, 636 and 638–639. New York: Van Nostrand.

73. 73.

    Ibid., 631.

74. 74.

    Ibid., 640.

75. 75.

    Norbert Wiener. 1956. The human use of human beings, 64–65. Garden City/New York: Doubleday Anchor.

76. 76.

    Ibid., 65.

77. 77.

    For Wiener and World War I, see Thomas Wyman. 2001, Spring. Norbert Wiener and the slide rule or how American mathematicians came of age. Journal of the Oughtred Society 10(1): 46–47.

78. 78.

    For the transmission of the serial-parallel dilemma from tabulating machines to electronic computers, see Paul E. Ceruzzi, “Crossing the Divide: Architectural Issues and the Emergence of the Stored Program Computer, 1935–1955.”

79. 79.

    Barnard , Paris universal exhibition, 1867: Report on machinery and processes of the industrial arts and apparatus of the exacts sciences, 641, 638, and 645.

80. 80.

    For the passages by Whipple and Ludgate , see E.M. Horsburgh. 1914. Modern instruments and methods of calculation: A handbook of the Napier tercentenary exhibition. London: Bell and Sons, 69 and 124 respectively. For Ludgate , see Brian Randell. 1982. From analytical engine to electronic digital computer : The contributions of Ludgate , Torres, and Bush. Annals of the History of Computing 4(4): 327–341.

81. 81.

    See Horsburgh, Modern instruments and methods of calculation: A handbook of the Napier tercentenary exhibition, 127.

82. 82.

    Barnard , Paris universal exhibition, 1867: Report on machinery and processes of the industrial arts and apparatus of the exacts sciences, 645.

83. 83.

    See Ceruzzi, Crossing the divide: Architectural issues and the emergence of the stored program computer, 1935–1955.

84. 84.

    Charles A. Holden . 1901, May 30. The use of calculating machines. Engineering News 45(22): 405.

85. 85.

    For Whittaker , see Warwick, The laboratory of theory or what’s exact about the exact sciences?.

86. 86.

    Aristotle Tympas. 2012. A deep tradition of computing technology: calculating electrification in the American West. In Where minds and matters meet: Technology in California and the West, ed. Volker Janssen, 71–101. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

87. 87.

    For Lipka , see Lipka , Graphical and mechanical computation.

88. 88.

    See Williams, in Horsburgh, Modern instruments and methods of calculation: A handbook of the Napier tercentenary exhibition, iii.

89. 89.

    For the general importance of classification, see Geoffrey C. Bowker, and Susan Leigh Star. 2000. Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. For Williams, see, Williams, “Introduction” in The handbook of the Napier tercenary celebration or modern instruments and methods of calculation, xx.

90. 90.

    Eric Hobsbawm , and Terence Ranger. 1983. The invention of tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

91. 91.

    See, Williams, “Introduction” in The handbook of the Napier tercenary celebration or modern instruments and methods of calculation, xviii.

92. 92.

    Horsburgh, Modern instruments and methods of calculation: A handbook of the Napier tercentenary exhibition, 274–275.

93. 93.

    Ibid., 69.

94. 94.

    Ibid., 220 and 259.

95. 95.

    See William Henry Leffingwell . 1926. The office appliance manual. National Association of Office Appliance Manufacturers, chapters II–III.

96. 96.

    Dellenbaugh , An electromechanical device for rapid schedule harmonic analysis of complex waves.

97. 97.

    Ibid., 142.

98. 98.

    Vannevar Bush. 1936. Instrumental analysis. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 42(10): 666.

99. 99.

    For an elaboration on this, see Tympas, A deep tradition of computing technology: Calculating electrification in the American West”.

100. 100.

     Bush, Instrumental Analysis: 655. For Vannevar Bush’s role at the time, see Larry Owens. 1986. Vannevar Bush and the differential analyzer: The text and context of an early computer. Technology and Culture 27(1): 63–95.

101. 101.

     Bush, Instrumental analysis: 651.

102. 102.

     Ibid., 655.

Authors and Affiliations

1. National and Kapodestrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

   Aristotle Tympas

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